Elephant in South Korean zoo imitates human speech

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An elephant in a South Korean zoo is using his trunk to pick up not only food, but also human vocabulary.

An international team of scientists confirmed Friday what the Everland Zoo has been saying for years: Their 5.5-ton tusker Koshik has an unusual and possibly unprecedented talent.

The 22-year-old Asian elephant can reproduce five Korean words by tucking his trunk inside his mouth to modulate sound, the scientists said in a joint paper published online in Current Biology. They said he may have started imitating human speech because he was lonely.

Koshik can reproduce "annyeong" (hello), "anja" (sit down), "aniya" (no), "nuwo" (lie down) and "joa" (good), the paper says.

One of the researchers said there is no conclusive evidence that Koshik understands the sounds he makes, although the elephant does respond to words like "anja."

Everland Zoo officials in the city of Yongin said Koshik also can imitate "ajik" (not yet), but the researchers haven't confirmed the accomplishment.

Koshik is particularly good with vowels, with a rate of similarity of 67 percent, the researchers said. For consonants he scores only 21 percent.

Researchers said the clearest scientific evidence that Koshik is deliberately imitating human speech is that the sound frequency of his words matches that of his trainers.

Vocal imitation of other species has been found in mockingbirds, parrots and mynahs. But the paper says Koshik's case represents "a wholly novel method of vocal production" because he uses his trunk to reproduce human speech.

In 1983, zoo officials in Kazakhstan reportedly claimed that a teenage elephant named Batyr could reproduce Russian to utter 20 phrases, including "Batyr is good." But there was no scientific study on the claim.

Researchers believe Koshik learned to reproduce words out of a desire to bond with his trainers after he was separated from two other elephants at age 5.

Koshik emerged as a star among animal enthusiasts and children in South Korea after Everland Zoo claimed in 2006 that he could imitate words, two years after his trainers noticed the phenomenon. His growing reputation prompted Austrian biologist Angela Stoeger-Horwath and German biophysicist Daniel Mietchen to study him in 2010, zoo officials said.

Oh Suk-hun, a South Korean veterinarian who co-authored the research paper with Stoeger-Horwath and Mietchen, said the elephant apparently started imitating human speech to win the trust of his trainers.

In April, a children's science book called "Joa Joa, Speaking Elephant" was published. The cover photo showed Koshik opening his mouth wide while raising a trunk over his trainer's head.

Researchers said Koshik was trained to obey several commands and "exposed to human speech intensively" by trainers, veterinarians and zoo visitors.

Shin Nam-sik, a veterinary professor at Seoul National University who has seen Koshik, agreed with researchers' finding that the elephant was able to mimic human speech.

"In Koshik's case, the level of intimacy between him and his trainer was the key factor that made the elephant want to sound like a human," Shin said.

Kim Jong-gab, Koshik's chief trainer, said the elephant was timid for a male when he first came to Everland Zoo, so trainers often slept in the same area with him. Kim thinks that contact helped Koshik feel closer to humans.

Kim said he has another phrase he wants to teach Koshik: "Saranghae," or "I love you."

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Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Read More..

Bob Dylan predicts Obama 'in a landslide'

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Bob Dylan says he thinks President Barack Obama is going to win a landslide.

Dylan made the prediction Monday night midway through the song "Blowin' in the Wind" during a concert in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

Dylan spoke to the Madison audience as he was wrapping up his concert that came just hours after Obama appeared at a morning rally in the same city with rocker Bruce Springsteen.

Dylan made his comments during his encore when he said, "We tried to play good tonight since the president was here today."

He went on to say he thinks Obama will prevail Tuesday.

Dylan says, "Don't believe the media. I think it's going to be a landslide."

After his comments, Dylan completed the song to the roar of the crowd.

Read More..

Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients' own cells for helping restore heart tissue.

The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyone's cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on hand now.

Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the study's leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University of Miami.

The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump blood effectively.

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involve surgery.

The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells from strangers.

About a year later, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Both groups had improvements in how far they could walk and in quality of life. There was no significant difference in one measure of how well their hearts were able to pump blood, but doctors hope these patients will continue to improve over time, or that refinements in treatment will lead to better results.

The big attraction is being able to use cells supplied by others, with no blood or tissue matching needed.

"You could have the cells ready to go in the blood bank so when the patient comes in for a therapy — there's no delay," Hare said. "It's also cheaper to make the donor cells," and a single marrow donor can supply enough cells to treat as many as 10 people.

Dr. Elliott Antman of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who heads the heart conference, praised the work.

"That opens up an entire new avenue for stem cell therapy, like a sophisticated version of a blood bank," he said. There's an advantage in not having to create a cell therapy for each patient, and it could spare them the pain and wait of having their own marrow harvested, he said.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Hare owns stock in a biotech company working on a treatment using a mixture of cells.

Juan Lopez received his own cells in the study, and said it improved his symptoms so much that at age 70, he was able to return to his job as an engineer and sales manager for a roofing manufacturer and ride an exercise bike.

"It has been a life-changing experience," said Lopez, who lives in Miami. "I can feel day by day, week by week, month by month, my improvement. I don't have any shortness of breath and my energy level is way up there. I don't have any fluid in my lungs."

And, he said happily, "My sex drive has improved!"

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

___

Online:

Heart Association: http://www.heart.org

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

Read More..

Long, bitter White House race finally in voters' hands

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney face the verdict of voters on Tuesday after a long and bitter White House campaign, with polls showing them deadlocked in a race that will be decided in a handful of states where it is extraordinarily close.

At least 120 million Americans are expected to vote on giving Obama a second term or replacing him with Romney. Their decision will set the country's course for four years on spending, taxes, healthcare and foreign policy challenges like the rise of China and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

National opinion polls show Obama and Romney in a virtual dead heat, although the Democratic incumbent has a slight advantage in several vital swing states - most notably Ohio - that could give him the 270 electoral votes he needs to win.

Romney, the multimillionaire former head of a private equity fund, would be the first Mormon president and one of the wealthiest Americans to occupy the White House. Obama, the first black president, is vying to be the first Democrat to win a second term since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Fueled by record spending on negative ads, the battle between the two men was focused primarily on the lagging economic recovery and persistent high unemployment, but at times it turned personal.

Polls will begin to close in Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. ESTon Tuesday, with voting ending across the country over the next six hours.

The first results, by tradition, were tallied in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, New Hampshire, shortly after midnight . Obama and Romney each received five votes in Dixville Notch. In Hart's Location, Obama got 23 votes to 9 votes for Romney and two votes for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

The close presidential race raises fears of a disputed outcome similar to the 2000 election, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Both campaigns have assembled legal teams to deal with possible voting problems, challenges or recounts.

The balance of power in the U.S. Congress will also be at stake in Senate and House of Representatives races that could impact the outcome of "fiscal cliff" negotiations on spending cuts and tax increases, which kick in at the end of the year unless a deal is reached.

Obama's Democrats are now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority, while Romney's Republicans are favored to retain House control.

Despite the weak economy, Obama appeared in September to be cruising to a relatively easy win after a strong party convention and a series of stumbles by Romney, including a secretly recorded video showing the Republican writing off 47 percent of the electorate as government-dependent victims.

But Romney rebounded in the first debate on October 3 in Denver, where his sure-footed criticism of the president and Obama's listless response started a slow rise for Romney in polls. Obama seemed to regain his footing in recent days at the head of federal relief efforts for victims of the storm Sandy.

The presidential contest is now likely to be determined by voter turnout - specifically, what combination of Republicans, Democrats, white, minority, young, old and independent voters shows up at polling stations.

Obama and Romney raced through seven battleground states on the final day of campaigning to hammer home their final themes, urge supporters to get to the polls and woo the last remaining undecided voters.

'WE KNOW WHAT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE'

Obama focused on Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, the three Midwestern swing states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would give him 270 electoral votes. Romney visited the must-win states of Florida, Virginia and Ohio before finishing in New Hampshire, where he launched his presidential run in June 2011.

After two days of nearly round-the-clock travel, Obama wrapped up his final campaign tour in Des Moines, Iowa, with a speech that hearkened back to his 2008 campaign.

"I've come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote. I came back to ask you to help us finish what we've started, because this is where our movement for change began," he told a crowd of some 20,000 people.

Obama's voice broke and he wiped away tears from his eyes as he reflected on those who had helped his campaign.

Romney's final day included stops in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. The former governor of Massachusetts ended the day at a raucous "Final Victory" rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, the city where he launched his campaign last year.

"We're one day away from a fresh start. We're one day away from a new beginning," the candidate, sounding hoarse at his fifth rally of the day, told the crowd of 12,000 at a sports arena in the center of the city.

Obama ridiculed Romney's claims to be the candidate of change and said the challenger would be a rubber stamp for a conservative Tea Party agenda. "We know what change looks like, and what he's selling ain't it," he said in Columbus, Ohio.

Romney argued he was the candidate who could break the partisan gridlock in Washington, and said four more years of Obama could mean another economic recession.

"His plan for the next four years is to take all the ideas from the first term - the stimulus, the borrowing, Obamacare, all the rest - and do them over again," he said in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The common denominator for both candidates was Ohio, the most critical of the battlegrounds, particularly for Romney. Without the state's 18 electoral votes, the path to victory becomes very narrow for the Republican.

Polls have shown Obama with a small but steady lead in the state for months, sparked in part by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry, which accounts for one of every eight jobs in Ohio, and by a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9 percent national rate.

That undercut the central argument of Romney's campaign - that his business experience made him uniquely qualified to create jobs and lead an economic recovery. Obama fought back through the summer with ads criticizing Romney's experience at the equity fund Bain Capital and portraying him as out of touch with ordinary Americans.

That was part of a steady barrage of advertising in the most heavily contested battleground states from both candidates and their party allies, who raised a combined $2 billion.

The rise of "Super PACs," unaffiliated outside groups that can spend unlimited sums on behalf of candidates, also helped fuel the record spending on political ads that swamped swing-state voters.

Romney planned to vote at home in Massachusetts on Tuesday morning before a final trip to Ohio and Pennsylvania, a Democratic-leaning state that he has tried to put in play in recent weeks.

Obama, who voted in October, will spend the day at his home in Chicago.

The two candidates took a break from campaign rallies to tape interviews that aired during halftime of Monday Night Football, a U.S. television institution.

Romney said the New England Patriots were his favorite football team and jokingly said that, as a former Massachusetts governor, he took credit for the team's Super Bowl victories.

Obama expressed faith that his hometown team, the Chicago Bears, can make it to the Super Bowl championship in January because they have the "best defense in the league."

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Iowa and Patricia Zengerle and Herb Swanson in New Hampshire; Editing by Alistair Bell, Christopher Wilson and Paul Simao)

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Methane warnings ignored before NZ mine disaster

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded.

The official report released Monday after 11 weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets.

"The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers," New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The country's labor minister, Kate Wilkinson, resigned from her labor portfolio after the report's release, saying she felt it was the honorable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities.

The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion.

At the time of the disaster, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny.

Key said he agrees with the report's conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing.

The commission's report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety problems. It also recommended a raft of measures to strengthen mine oversight.

Key said his government would consider the recommendations and hoped to implement most of them. He would not commit on forming a new agency. Workplace safety issues are currently one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings from mine workers that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the deadly explosion.

The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down — something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high.

The company made a "major error" by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialized technique than can release large amounts of methane.

The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc.

The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated.

An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Read More..

Lucas plans 'little personal films' in future

NEW YORK (AP) — George Lucas is done with "Star Wars," but not with filmmaking.

The "Star Wars" creator says he's looking forward to making his "own little personal films" that he doubts will be for the theater crowd.

Lucas spoke Friday night at Ebony magazine's Power 100 Gala, days after announcing the sale of his storied Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion. The deal would allow for more "Star Wars" films.

Lucas was "very sad" let Lucasfilm go but excited about his educational foundation, which will benefit from the sale. He also plans to make more movies. His last one was this year's "Red Tails," about the Tuskegee Airmen, but he said he barely got it in theaters. He said the movies he's working on now "will never get into theaters."

Read More..

Doctors debate value of 'fringe' heart treatment

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A heart disease treatment that many doctors consider fringe medicine unexpectedly showed promise in a federal study marred by controversy, causing debate about the results.

The study tested chelation ("kee-LAY'shun"), periodic intravenous infusions said to remove calcium from hardened arteries. Chelation is used to treat lead poisoning but its safety and value for heart disease are unproven.

In a study of 1,700 heart attack survivors, fewer of those getting chelation suffered heart problems in later years than others given dummy infusions. But so many quit the study that the results are unclear. Doctors say chelation cannot be recommended yet.

Results were discussed Sunday at a heart conference in California.

Read More..

One more day: Obama and Romney make their final arguments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney make a frenetic dash to a series of crucial swing states on Monday, delivering their final arguments to voters on the last day of an extraordinarily close race for the White House.

After a long, bitter and expensive campaign, national polls show Obama and Romney are essentially deadlocked ahead of Tuesday's election, although Obama has a slight advantage in the eight or nine battleground states that will decide the winner.

Obama plans to visit three of those swing states on Monday and Romney will travel to four to plead for support in a fierce White House campaign that focused primarily on the lagging economy but at times turned intensely personal.

The election's outcome will impact a variety of domestic and foreign policy issues, from the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that could kick in at the end of the year to questions about how to handle illegal immigration or the thorny challenge of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The balance of power in Congress also will be at stake on Tuesday, with Obama's Democrats now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority and Romney's Republicans favored to retain control of the House of Representatives.

In a race where the two candidates and their party allies raised a combined $2 billion, the most in U.S. history, both sides have pounded the heavily contested battleground states with an unprecedented barrage of ads.

The close margins in state and national polls suggested the possibility of a cliffhanger that could be decided by which side has the best turnout operation and gets its voters to the polls.

In the final days, both Obama and Romney focused on firing up core supporters and wooing the last few undecided voters in battleground states.

Romney reached out to dissatisfied Obama supporters from 2008, calling himself the candidate of change and ridiculing Obama's failure to live up to his campaign promises. "He promised to do so very much but frankly he fell so very short," Romney said at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sunday.

Obama, citing improving economic reports on the pace of hiring, argued in the final stretch that he has made progress in turning around the economy but needed a second White House term to finish the job. "This is a choice between two different versions of America," Obama said in Cincinnati, Ohio.

FINAL SWING-STATE BLITZES

Obama will close his campaign on Monday with a final blitz across Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa - three Midwestern states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would be enough to get him more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

Polls show Obama has slim leads in all three. His final stop on Monday night will be in Iowa, the state that propelled him on the path to the White House in 2008 with a victory in its first-in-the nation caucus.

Romney will visit his must-win states of Florida and Virginia - where polls show he is slightly ahead or tied - along with Ohio before concluding in New Hampshire, where he launched his presidential run last year.

The only state scheduled to get a last-day visit from both candidates is Ohio, the most critical of the remaining battlegrounds - particularly for Romney.

The former Massachusetts governor has few paths to victory if he cannot win in Ohio, where Obama has kept a small but steady lead in polls for months.

Obama has been buoyed in Ohio by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry, where one in every eight jobs is tied to car manufacturing, and by a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9 percent national rate.

That has undercut Romney's frequent criticism of Obama's economic leadership, which has focused on the persistently high jobless rate and what Romney calls Obama's big spending efforts to expand government power.

Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, has centered his campaign pitch on his own experience as a business leader at a private equity fund and said it made him uniquely suited to create jobs.

Obama's campaign fired back with ads criticizing Romney's experience and portraying the multimillionaire as out of touch with everyday Americans.

Obama and allies said Romney's firm, Bain Capital, plundered companies and eliminated jobs to maximize profits. They also made an issue of Romney's refusal to release more than two years of personal tax returns.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Christopher Wilson)

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